So, the day of this post, Fantastic Four No. 4 will come out. Johnny is once again powerless, and off the team, and to keep my interest, the FF will have to fight the Wrecking Crew. Don’t know who they are? Go figure.

The Wrecking Crew is a team of four fictional supervillains — Bulldozer, Piledriver, Thunderball, and the Wrecker — that appears in Marvel Comics. While not featured on the cover, the Wrecking Crew’s first appearance is in Defenders vol. 1, #17 in November 1974. They get their powers from a magical Asgardian crowbar (no joke) that makes them into super strong, super durable badasses.

That’s it. That’s all. In Issue No. 2, the FF thwarts a full scale alien invasion. They sacrifice Johnny’s powers to do it, and now…now they are fighting the Wrecking Crew. Over the years the Wrecking Crew have perpetuated a very familiar cycle – escape prison, fight and subsequently lose to superheroes, and return to prison. As today’s twist…it seems that the crowbar wielding Wrecker is no their leader, but the super-scientist Wizard is. Oooh.

So, I’m pretty glad I drew this page. This one panel has more awesome in it than the whole proposed fourth issue. Let’s review the panel.

First…our hero is standing in for Johnny. Like every time before someone has lost their powers, there’s a sub. There is a whole Trade Paperback of Substitute Fantastic Four members, entitled “Extended Family.” It’s a thing they do, and our hero brings excellent, if generic, superpowers to the table. She brings a lot more than Peter Parker.

Second. They are not fighting the Wrecking Crew, a bunch of sad henchmen. Nope…they are fighting Zombie Pirates. I’m way over Zombies, but am cool with Pirates, making the two cancel out. The zero sum achieved trumps the negative integer of coolness brought by the Wrecking Crew.

Lastly…check the drama. Sue does not like our hero. She says so. Does it have to do with previous issues of Adequacy? Is she just kind of mean? We don’t know…but this is still more real character development than I have gotten in three issues of a professionally done comic. Sigh.

I suppose I have a few hundred good issues to fall back on, True Believers. I’m strongly considering keeping our hero on the Fantastic Four, despite the horrible red uniforms they wear now, until Johnny is back on the team. Spider-man managed to be on like, every Marvel team, right? I’m sure that with the idea of previous stand in moments (which have been already, although recently illustrated) I could get some mileage out of it for the summer at least.